S&P officials defend US credit downgrade

Martin Crutsinger, AP Economics Writer, On Saturday August 6, 2011, 7:14 pm EDT

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Standard & Poor's says it downgraded the U.S. government's credit rating because it believes the U.S. will keep having problems getting its finances under control.
S&P officials on Saturday defended their decision to drop the government's rating to AA+ from the top rating, AAA. The Obama administration called the move a hasty decision based on wrong calculations about the federal budget. It had tried to head off the downgrade before it was announced late Friday.

But S&P said it was the months of haggling in Congress over budget cuts that led it to downgrade the U.S. rating. The ratings agency was dissatisfied with the deal lawmakers reached last weekend. And it isn't confident that the government will do much better in the future, even as the U.S. budget deficit grows.

Bailey Comment: Anybody with any common sense would agree with these people. As long as we have the same idiots running our government it will only keep getting worst!

Eight Billion Dollars for the U.N. -- The Other Budget Scandal

For the past few weeks, we here in the U.S. have been obsessed with the debt ceiling increase and our massive budget deficit. At the same time another budget that we spend an inordinate amount of money on has flown under the radar during this vociferous and contentious debate.

While we are in an unprecedented age of austerity and the U.S. has been flirting with default, the United Nations has continued its unchecked and profligate spending.  

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/08/06/eight-billion-dollars-for-un-other-budget-scandal/#ixzz1ULTRGGaY

Beneath Jobs Report Surface Lies Some Ugly Truths

Before getting too excited about the modest uptick in net job creation and a slight downward move in the unemployment rate, it’s probably worth a look under the hood.

As is usually the case, there is far more than meets the eye to the Labor Department’s report that the economy added 117,000 jobs last month and the unemployment rate fell to 9.1 percent.http://www.cnbc.com/id/44033486

Bailey Comment: Can you believe it, I found this on a leftest network.

Global Warming Theory Faces Sudden Collapse

By Matt Patterson, N.Y. Post

Every day it seems new evidence emerges that the “evidence” for global warming has been exaggerated, manufactured or just plain wrong.

Take the case of Charles Monnett of the US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement. On July 18, Monnett -- a longtime poster boy for global-warming orthodoxy -- was put on leave pending an investigation into the “integrity” of his work.

The specifics of the investigation are as yet unclear, but the Associated Press reports on indications that the questioning "has centered on observations that Monnett and fellow researcher Jeffrey Gleason made in 2004 . . . of four dead polar bears floating in the water after a storm. They detailed their observations in an article published two years later in the journal Polar Biology."

Monnett and Gleason claimed this was the first known observation of polar bears apparently drowning after being forced to swim long distances in the open sea. Naturally, they saw global warming -- which allegedly is shrinking the polar ice caps -- as the culprit.

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/warming_not_g34wzp6cJ2ux5FkoFdSlbJ#ixzz1U3Ffh7ns

Chinese agency downgrades US credit rating

BEIJING (AP) — A little-known Chinese ratings agency has downgraded the rating of the United States from A+ to A. The move is unlikely to affect U.S. borrowing rates but reflects the pessimism Washington's debt battle has generated worldwide.

President Barack Obama signed emergency legislation to boost the debt ceiling ahead of a deadline to avoid an unprecedented national default.

Still, China's Dagong Global Credit Rating Co. said Wednesday that the deal doesn't change the fact that U.S. debt growth has outpaced its economy and fiscal revenue.

Dagong is little-known outside China but hopes to compete with global ratings agencies Moody's, Standard & Poor's and Fitch.

Moody's has said the U.S. will retain its highest bond rating but with a "negative" outlook.

Bailey Comment: You dimocrats should be happy now, you voted the guy in as president!

Limbaugh: Don't Be Fooled — Debt Deal Means More Taxes

Whether the deal to reduce the government deficit passes or not, says radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh, the American people are still going to get a tax increase.

“Any way you slice it you are going to get tax increases. That’s how screwed we are,” he said.

Limbaugh blames the complex accounting done by the Congressional Budget Office, he said on his radio show on Monday.

President George W. Bush’s tax cuts that are due to expire at the end of next year, he says. If Obama extends the cuts, the CBO will consider that a $ 5 trillion reduction in government income which will have to be made up elsewhere. If they expire, that’s a direct tax hike on Americans, Limbaugh said.

“Anyone wanting to tell you there are no tax increases in this technically may be right, this piece of legislation does not have a specific tax increases in it. But what’s slated to happen over the next few months results in one,” Limbaugh said.

“There hasn’t been a significant cut in spending,” he added. “There’s nothing that’s going to affect the rate of growth of government, nothing that’s making it smaller.”


Read more on Newsmax.com: Limbaugh: Don't Be Fooled — Debt Deal Means More Taxes
Important: Do You Support Pres. Obama's Re-Election? Vote Here Now!

Gabrielle Giffords Brings Down the House

WASHINGTON — Emergency legislation to avoid an economy-rattling government default sped through the House Monday night, a scant day before the deadline for action — the dramatic vote made all the more memorable by Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' first appearance in Congress since suffering a head wound in a shooting six months ago.
The vote was 269-161, but all eyes were on Giffords, who drew thunderous applause as she walked into the House chamber and cast her vote in favor of the bill.
A final Senate sign-off for the measure is virtually assured on Tuesday.

Giffords made a dramatic entrance Monday night during the crucial debt-limit vote and drew loud applause and cheers from surprised colleagues. They gave her a standing ovation.

As lawmakers stood on the floor, staring up at the vote board, Giffords slowly made her way through an entrance on the Democratic side of the chamber. Applause built and rolled like a wave through the House as lawmakers realized that their colleague had returned.

Vice President Joe Biden was also on hand as she entered the House, escorted by her chief of staff and by Florida Democrat Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

On Jan. 8, Giffords, an Arizona Democrat, was shot in the head in the parking lot of a Tucson grocery store while meeting with constituents. Six people were killed and 13 others, including Giffords, were wounded. The man charged in the shooting, Jared Lee Loughner, has pleaded not guilty to 49 charges

On the House floor, Giffords hugged and kissed fellow lawmakers. As time ticked off on the vote, Democrats and Republicans made their way toward her.

She cast her first vote — for the debt-limit bill — and left the Capitol.


Read more on Newsmax.com: Gabrielle Giffords Brings Down the House
Important: Do You Support Pres. Obama's Re-Election? Vote Here Now!

Aimless Ames, A Lot of Numbers and a Tiger

Worth Its Weight In...Straw

With all the news of doom and gloom and threats to halt Social Security checks, you might not have noticed there is a political event coming up that the media will inevitably hype - the Ames Straw Poll. Some Republican Presidential candidates will be falling all over themselves to get a few people to vote for them in a meaningless “event” in the small town of Ames, Iowa.

Why do I say it’s meaningless? Because it is. A look at the history of the Ames poll shows no correlation between the winner and the eventual nominee. More importantly, it shows no correlation between the winner and the winner of the Iowa Caucus. It’s pointless, unless your goal is to waste a lot of money.

The poll started in 1979, so there’s no storied history here, no long tradition of...well, anything. But let’s pretend for a second, shall we?http://townhall.com/columnists/derekhunter/2011/07/31/aimless_ames,_a_lot_of_numbers_and_a_tiger